Betfair Software Glitch Forces Massive Cancelations

Betfair, the well-known online casino and betting website, was forced to cancel all bets placed on the Leopardstown Christmas Hurdle a day and a half after the race was won. A technical error that enabled one customer to exceed his exposure limit by millions of pounds caused the mass cancelation. As a result of the error, the customer was able to bet millions of pounds at 28-1 odds on the horse Voler La Vedette, a horse with good chances of winning the race. Though he could have theoretically walked away with about 23 million pounds, in order to do so the customer would have needed to have about 640 million pounds in his account.

The spokesman at Betfair, Tony Calvin, clarified that the deviation was caused by a technical glitch and there is no need to fear that someone intentionally tampered with the account. Betfair employees have already located the flaw and taken care of it. Now they are running tests to ensure that the embarrassing mistake doesn’t repeat itself.

Calvin also said clarified that the issue was local to that account. Furthermore, despite the fact that Betfair’s system erred, the player would not have been able to win anyways because according to the terms and conditions a customer can not bet money without holding enough cash in his account to cover potential losses. In this instance, the player would not have been able to pay up had Voler La Vedette lost. Calvin added that they had to cancel the bets regardless of the results of the race, and that it doesn’t matter who betted on which horse.

In addition to sports betting, Betfair also offers online casino games as well as Betfair Mobile which is a mobile online casino.